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Farmers Strike A Blow Against World Hunger
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Information compiled by John
Dietz
Photos from Afghanistan by
Bruce Hildebrandt
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The war has taken some things, but the drought
has taken everything,” an Afghan man named Jimah told Richard
Phillips, a visiting Canadian farmer. The man had already sold
most of his personal possessions to buy food for his family.
Last year his wife had gone without food for up to 10 days at
a time while he was on the road trying to find work. The experience
has left her with permanent physical disabilities.
From Afghanistan to Africa, from India and North
Korea to Peru and El Salvador, in 26 countries around the world
Canadian farmers and their local communities are giving of their
time and resources to feed hungry people and help them get started
in their own agricultural production.
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Afghan girls who were on the receiving end of food
donated by Canadian growers.
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Richard Phillips has seen the faces of starvation on
destitute mothers and children in these faraway places. But he has
also seen hope on the faces of the men in these struggling countries
when they could feed their families and had seed to grow a crop of
their own.
Phillips is Resource Director for the Canadian Foodgrains
Bank (CFGB) in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A farmer and businessman from Tisdale,
Saskatchewan, he coordinates the volunteer efforts of growers throughout
Canada who last year sent over 35,000 tons of grain to feed the hungry
along with seed to encourage these people in their own farm and water
projects.
Food Need In Afghanistan
Last November, Phillips returned from Afghanistan where
he visited projects supported by CFGB. The Afghan people, he said,
are both resilient and entrepreneurial. They have not only suffered
through years of war, but have struggled with the loss of crops as
a result of continued drought.
Calling their effort “A Christian response to hunger,”
the Canadian Foodgrains Bank is the food aid arm of 13 Canadian church
agencies that work together to raise resources so they are able to
respond with food directly to people in crisis around the world.
While some food aid is sent into refugee camps for emergency
relief, most goes to water and farm projects that will enable these
people, in the future, to feed themselves from their own crops.
Food As Wages
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Three years of drought in Afghanistan have made
it almost impossible for that troubled nation to feed
itself.
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“In Ethiopia we send Canadian wheat to pay
wages for people building a dam they’ll use for irrigation,”
Phillips explained. “Fifteen pounds of wheat a day is a
working wage. People show up, build the dam, and they take ownership
because they built it with their own hands. Then, they look
after it and maintain things.”
Grain and other food crops that are shipped overseas
come from about 250 volunteer community growing projects across
Canada. Local committees pool their resources to supply land,
equipment, and crop inputs. Fund-raising projects provide cash
to purchase inputs that are not donated.
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“In total, these groups presently have nearly 15,000
acres set aside for us,” Phillips said. “Every year we see
an increase in the number of communities involved.”
The harvest of the crop at any one of these growing
projects often becomes an important community event. A dozen combines
may show up to take off the crop. They are supported by a half-dozen
grain trucks that deliver the crop directly to an elevator. The gathering
then turns into a harvest barbecue with spouses, children, friends,
drivers, and combine operators all taking part.
Farmers Helping Farmers
This large level of volunteer support also keeps administrative
costs to a minimum. In most years the Foodgrains Bank operates with
an overhead of less than 10 percent. “These are farmers helping
farmers, “ Phillips said. “We’re trying to help other
farm families produce more food.”
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Both crops and money donated to the food bank
are matched four-to-one by a grant from the Canadian government.
Donations of wheat, canola, corn, and soybeans total about $3
million in value each year. Monetary donations, coming mostly
from urban residents and churches, equal another $3 million
a year.
“Over 95 percent of what we ship actually
reaches the intended people,” Phillips said. He explained
that this high rate of effectiveness is possible because, “We
don’t provide food to governments.” With 13 church
organizations involved in the project, nearly all with missionary
ties to the countries in need, the CFGB has been able to distribute
the food through a trusted local organization in each country.
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Donated Canadian grain is delivered directly
to those who need it in Afghanistan.
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Food products sent to any country are matched as closely
as possible to what the local people are most familiar with. Wheat
and wheat flour make up less than 15 percent of the aid, while whole
or split peas are two-thirds of the donations. Shipments also include
corn flour, cornmeal, canola, soy oil, lentils, beans, skim milk powder,
sugar, rolled oats and dehydrated potatoes. Swaps of food commodities
allow them to also provide rice and white maize.
Where There Is Need
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Widows in Sierra Leone wait patiently for food
from Canadian growers.
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“Regardless of race, color, creed, or religion,”
Phillips said, “if children and families need food aid,
we will step in to help. We’ve worked with the Iranian
Red Crescent Society and other Islamic groups to help us deliver
food aid. And in North Korea, almost all the church members
are working together in one major response.”
Some cash donations to the CFGB are used to provide
agricultural training, seed, or hand tools for farming. After
a dam is built, the local people need to learn what crops can
best be grown with the water supply and how to make best use
of the irrigation water.
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Success is evident in some villages where food aid is
no longer needed. “The wealth of the community and the food security
of the community has improved drastically. There is no need to go
back. There are areas where people have been self-sufficient for years
now, especially where water projects have been completed,” Phillips
said.
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“We’re fighting world hunger one field at a time
over there,” he said. “You might think you should
take in a tractor, but there’s no diesel fuel, no roads
to get there, and no way to maintain a tractor if it brakes
down. The community has the people, the land, and the desire.
They can tell you the best way to help. We supply the food,
and maybe the shovels, so they can do it.”
In West Bengal, India, 550 tons of rice became wage support
for 1,000 families who had to rebuild their mud houses and reconstruct
roads damaged by major floods. Workers received 5 kg. (11 pounds)
of rice for each day’s work. But in El Salvador the need
was for one-time food aid to help 25,000 people left homeless
following a devastating earthquake.
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Richard Phillips, Resource Director for the Canadian
Foodgrains Bank.
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The Canadian Foodgrains Bank came into being in the
1980s as a grass-roots, church-based response to famine in Ethiopia.
The organization now has major food programs in Afghanistan, India,
and North Korea, and has sent food and seed to 23 other countries,
among them the Ukraine, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Cambodia, Congo, and Peru.
Richard Phillips has been Resource Director of CFGB
for nearly three years. He owns an 800-acre farm near Tisdale, Saskatchewan,
where he produces seed crops for Phillips Seeds, Ltd., a family-owned
business started by his grandfather. He divides his time between farm
management and work with the foodgrains bank.
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At a community food project near Arnaud, Manitoba
a dozen combines show up to harvest grain destined for
the world's hungry.
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Phillips’ work takes him to those faraway
places where the donated Canadian food items are saving lives
and helping people in need to start producing their own food.
He has seen the malnourished and starving receive prairie grain
in bags marked with the CFGB logo. And he has experienced the
happiness this food brings to people who need it as a stepping
stone out of starvation.
“This is the most rewarding work I can probably
ever hope to do,” he concluded.
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